On That Night in May City
by Mind Lint
Summary: Finding it hard to get to sleep one night, Vash re-visits a fond memory of an evening in May City. Wolfwood pesters our favorite gunman about his growing feelings for a certain insurance girl.


**"On That Night in May City"**

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><p><em><strong>Summary:<strong> (Post-anime, but flashbacks to during-anime) Finding it hard to get to sleep, Vash re-visits a fond memory of an evening in May City, getting drunk and having fun with three people who would become known as the best friends he's ever had. After Meryl drags a plastered and half-naked Milly off to bed, Wolfwood pesters Vash with a question that's been on his mind the whole evening. Vash considers his fast-growing feelings for a vertically challenged insurance girl._

_**Pairings:** Vash/Meryl, Wolfwood/Milly__  
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_**Rating: **A bit of drunkness, a bit of half-naked Milly, and an angry neighbor in the next hotel room over, but nothing graphic.  
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_"I like writing oneshots because I suck at anything else!"_

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><p>Wandering thoughts once again consumed his mind, making the seemingly easy task of getting to sleep pretty much impossible. Insomnia was a common enemy of the infamous gunman, or as one vertically challenged representative of the Bernardelli Insurance Society would call him, 'Gunsmoke's lamest excuse for an outlaw.'<p>

With such a dangerous reputation, not to forget the fact he has lived for more than 130 years, and in that time destroyed two major cities and blasted a giant hole in the fifth moon, ruined the lives of countless people, violated the teachings of the woman he idolized by actually killing a man, and then finally, after decades of searching, locating and defeating his sociopathic twin brother, only to be hit with the next question of "what do you do now?", it would make perfect sense that there were some nights when the Humanoid Typhoon just could not find the peace within oneself that he needed to get a bit of shut-eye!

Although to be fair, the silent meanderings of his innermost thoughts were not entirely unpleasant on this night. It was true he had pondered off and on about this one particular subject before, but never until recently had bothered to give it so much thought.

Vash shut his eyes again, drifting back to a time long past, in May City, where he and three people who would turn out to be the best friends he's ever had, had spent much of the evening gathered in a tiny hotel room, talking, playing games, and drinking the night away. It was that night when the idea first came to him, or perhaps had been forced upon him by one drunken, chain-smoking priest.

"Let me ask you something." Wolfwood stammered, after the short and somewhat buzzed (although she denied it) insurance girl had finally managed to drag her plastered and half-naked partner back to their own room for the night.

Without lifting his aching head from its resting place on the edge of the table, Vash waved a hand and mumbled a noise that might have sounded something like 'shoot' if you listened very carefully.

There was a long pause, which had Vash wondering if the priest had actually fallen asleep, but he didn't care to look up and see. Finally Wolfwood took a deep breath before he leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. "So which would you choose?"

Now it was Vash's turn to pause. What was he talking about again? Was it something to do with food? "Oh, that's easy," he began; still with his head resting on the table he licked his lips, "I like the honey-glazed kind."

The crash from Wolfwood's fist meeting the hard surface of the wooden table startled Vash and caused him to nearly fall backwards from his seat with a loud yelp which surely must have woken up half the guests at the hotel that night. The priest had a scowl on his face, which quickly dissolved to a look of almost irritated amusement. "Is food all you ever think about?"

Vash opened his mouth to speak defensively, but was cut off before he could even get a word out. "I was talking about the girls," Wolfwood grinned.

Another pause. "Wait, what? What girls?"

Wolfwood could see that his spiky-headed friend was honestly confused, and he wondered if it was just the fact he was so drunk he couldn't think straight, or if the legendary gunman was really that dumb. Casting Vash a disappointed stare, he chose to keep quiet, have a smoke, and count the minutes it would take before the needle noggin realized "what girls" he was talking about.

Vash blinked, and then the look on his face when it finally dawned on him was enough to make Wolfwood snort in laughter, although to his credit it didn't take as long as Wolfwood expected for him to figure it out.

"You mean them?" He pointed towards the door where the insurance girls had left. Smile on his face, the priest nodded, and Vash shook his head in response. "Neither." He answered quickly.

"Oh," Wolfwood looked away, giving his chin an awkward scratch. "Well, I'm not one to judge. I leave that up to our good Lo—"

"I'm not gay." Vash deadpanned, "I just… don't feel that way about them. The big one isn't my type, really, and the little one? Do I even need an excuse?"

"That's not fun, Needle Noggin." Wolfwood pressed, smile on his face. It was as if he took some sort of sick pleasure out of pushing The Stampede out of his comfort zone. "Come on; let's say you had to choose one. Who would it be?"

Vash sighed, "Are we talking life or death now? Because—"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Spikey! Humor me."

At this point he was beginning to wonder why it was so important to the preacher man which insurance girl he liked the best, but was willing to blame it on the dozen-or-so empty bottles scattered around the little hotel room, and, like Wolfwood said, humor him. Vash crossed his arms and thought quietly for a minute, willing himself to imagine how he'd feel if the girls _didn't _keep him under 24 hour surveillance. How he would feel if Meryl wasn't such a moody bitch all the time. The big one was very kind, innocent, and he could tell she was a lot smarter than she let on, but as far as sexual attraction goes he was more in to women than girls, and although Milly was probably older than she looked, she certainly acted younger than she was.

Wolfwood was impatiently tapping his fingers on the table when Vash finally leaned back with a disgruntled sigh. "I guess… the short one."

The laughter that suddenly erupted from the priest prompted their neighbor in the next room over to yell out some profanity and chuck something at his side of the wall. Wolfwood retorted by slipping off his shoe and throwing it back at their side of the wall, still snickering childishly in spite of his blond friend's admittance.

"Meryl, huh? So you like the abusive types. Interesting." He grinned and Vash shot him an evil glare. "Like I said, I'm not one to judge."

Vash sighed again, waving his hand as he spat out excuses in his own defense, "She's cute. That's all." He noted the priest's raised eyebrow, coupled with a cocky smirk. "Ok, really cute, if not for that short fuse…" He drifted off.

"Heh. Short." Wolfwood snorted, but Vash ignored him.

"And what about you?"

"Me…? Spiky, I'm surprised at you. You ought to know that already..."

Some noise from the next room snapped Vash out of his thoughts and back in to the present time. His eyes felt damp from revisiting the fond memory of his dear old friend, but he hadn't been crying. Not entirely anyways. He could see a feint light shining through the bottom of the closed doorway, and heard the soft murmuring of two women—the insurance girls—his insurance girls talking about something, although he could just barely make out what they were saying.

"…report …"

"…'m sleepy…"

"Get some rest. I'll finish it."

It was rare that the two were still awake by the time Vash himself was ready to hit the hay, even if he couldn't actually get to sleep. There was a report due to be mailed off to the Bernardelli main office first thing in the morning, and much unlike her 'old self', Meryl had completely put it off until the last possible moment. Now here she was at two-in-the-morning, sipping coffee and tapping furiously at the typewriter to finish a full-page essay about how for the past month Vash The Stampede had done… _absolutely nothing_.

She would not report about Knives, or the fact Vash and his brother were actually independent Plants born from some sort of glitch that not even they could explain, though no doubt there were many people in the world who already suspected that Vash was not entirely human. She wouldn't write about Legato, or Wolfwood, or even of Milly's recently discovered pregnancy. That was something the big girl would have to tell them herself, if she didn't choose to just resign from the agency altogether.

And what's more, Meryl would never tell a soul that somewhere, somehow, she'd fallen head over heels in love with the most feared gunman on the planet. The infamous outlaw. The $$60-billion-double-dollar man. Or, as she often called him these days, 'Gunsmoke's lamest excuse for an outlaw.'

Yes, he knew. Although the short girl hadn't yet admitted it to him either, she was easy to read, and during the past few months it became increasingly obvious how she felt about him; and the more obvious it became, the more he enjoyed it.

Laying there in the dark room with his eyes shut tight, more than ready for sleep to finally take him, Vash repeated to himself the words he'd spoken that night in May City, so long ago. "She's really cute. If not for that short fuse…" But this time, instead of drifting off, he paused to think for a moment before continuing on with a genuine smile. "…I could really fall for her."


End file.
